Page 41 of All the Ways You Save Me
Still aching from her fall on top of me, and my unfulfilled desire when she scrambled off, I mop up the water, wishing it were as easy to clean up the mess of this situation. I toss the dish towels aside and slide back under the counter to tighten the bolts and washers like I should have done the first time. I need to get it together because today, I might have slipped up on a little plumbing issue, but if I’m not careful the next time, I could say or do something to trigger a tsunami.
I try to focus on my sink repairs, but the whole time I can hear Madeline moving around in the bedroom, and it does nothing to get my head in the game. How am I going to survive the entire summer with her living a couple of yards away? How am I going to work in my shop with her lounging on her back deck in those clingy sundresses?
I should have insisted that Vanessa find Madeline a different house. But when it came down to it, Icouldn’t bring myself to make the call. Just like I couldn’t bring myself to flee the island and disappear the minute I realized it was her on the beach yesterday.
Madeline. The love of my life.
Having her in my arms felt as right as it did that first time we kissed in the back of my Bronco, and in the field of wildflowers by my family’s old trailer, and all the other places where I got to hold her, touch her, feel her pressed against me.
But just like it was then, being with her is too good to be true. I knew it from the moment she looked up at me with those eyes that I love and called meAdam, the name of her childhood love.
My name… before I died in a frozen river a decade ago.
TWENTY-THREE
PRESENT DAY
Madeline
I wake up with the sun shining in through the bedroom window and my phone buzzing on the side table next to me. I fumble for it, dragging myself out of a dream about a man with dark hair and aquamarine eyes. I don’t know if I’m dreaming of Adam or Garrett, just like I don’t know which man I almost kissed on my kitchen floor yesterday. All I know is that the only thing I regret is pulling away.
The phone continues buzzing, and Josie’s name slides across the screen. It’s 9 a.m. here, which would make it 6 a.m. in the Bay Area. She really must be worrying about me if she’s awake at this hour.
“I’m calling to check in on you,” Josie says, getting right to the point.
I rub my eyes. “I’m fine.”
“You seemed like you were struggling the last time we talked, and I’m wondering how you’re feeling now that a few days have gone by, and you’ve had a little distance from seeing that video.”
I sit up, fully awake now, and a little part of me is tempted to laugh.Distance.I can still feel Garrett’s arms around me as he caught my fall. See his aquamarine eyes—so like Adam’s—searching mine. He was about to kiss me; I know he was. I could feel it in the hitch of his breath, the shift of his body, the throb against my thigh signaling how badly he wanted me.
I have absolutely no distance.
“Um… well…” I consider telling Josie that everything is fine and then getting off the phone as quickly as possible. She wasn’t happy that I came to Sandy Harbor chasing the guy who looks like Adam, so she’sreallynot going to like that I almost made out with him on my kitchen floor. But I don’t want to start lying to the people I love. Maybe I didn’t handle the end of my relationship with Jason as well as I could have, but at least I tried to be honest. Josie is my sister, and I know she’ll support me, even if she doesn’t agree with everything I decide to do. “I found the surfer in the video.”
Josie’s sharp intake of breath carries through the phone. “The one who looks like Adam?”
I don’t bother to answer because of course that’s the surfer I’m talking about. I toss aside the covers and swing my feet out of the bed. “I had to find out if it was really him.”
“And… is it?”
I pad into the kitchen and open the door to the back deck. I step outside and peek over the railing at the house next door. Garrett’s Jeep is gone and the door to the shop is closed. Maybe he’s surfing or working on a house somewhere else on the island.
“I don’t know. He says his name is Garrett, and he has no idea what I’m talking about. But Josie… this guy looks just like Adam, even more in real life. He’s older, obviously. But his facial features, his hair…his eyes.” A seagull flies overhead and lands on the roof of the house behind my shed. “I don’t know what to think.”
“Madeline, people look like other people all the time!”
“Not like this.”
Through the phone, I hear the crinkle of a bag of coffee and the clank of a mug on granite. “Look at Elijah Wood and Daniel Radcliffe. Look at that actor fromThe Bear… what’s his name?”
The seagull from across the street swoops onto the railing, probably hoping I have some pastries to share. “Jeremy Allen White?” I ask absently.
“Yes, that guy. He looks like Gene Wilder’s younger identical twin.”
I picture their faces. “I thought they were related.”
“No.And what about Amy Adams and Isla Fisher? Which one of them was inDefinitely, Maybe?”
